As I did not want to go to my parents I went looking for shelter in Groningen. Together with a cunning cigarette vending-machine thief by the name of Heino I ‘avant la lettre’ squatted in a condemned house and thus became a derelict denizen. The windows already had been painted grey so we did not need any curtains. Still, in the evening we regularly heard footsteps stopping and a prying shadow was cast on the dulled glass by a streetlamp opposite. We cut that out by clearing a peephole at the windowsill, showing a genuine human skull with a candle on top. Step, ste-ep, stagger, zzzooff. Now that was fun!
After a fat week the Council tried to kick us out by demolishing the floors, so we moved upstairs.

As the autumn went ahead we began blowing winter breath.
Early one morning I woke up crackling and thought to discern the contours of ‘The Holy Land’ in the frost flowers on the skylight. That did it. ‘I am going to Israel, if not for Karen at least I’ll be warm’.
I had sewn together a bag of strong plastic that neatly fitted my sleeping bag and me. Thus I hoped to be able to sleep outside through any kind of weather.
On the first day I happened to reach Mannheim and sought my virgin rest under a flyover, as there was no point in tempting the gods. After I had dozed off triumphantly (my home is my plastle) I soon woke up in a swamp, stewing in my own juices.

Very early I travelled on, until a well-meaning dumbo dropped me off just before Munich, so I had to walk by the entire city for a likely ride. In those days we did not yet have vertically compartmented rucksacks with up-balanced carry weight and soft lined ergonomic rigging. The brace was like one of those iron corsets that put the ‘lug’ into luggage. But I toiled on in blissful ignorance.

To be continued: 'Doing Miles, Baby'.